A conventional bathroom sauna device in the category under discussion has an airflow path which connects air intake with blow out opening directed towards a bathroom chamber. The airflow path is provided at the inside with a humidifying device which sprays warm water. Thereby, heated and humidified air is sent into the bathroom chamber. (Patent Document 1 below is a known example of documents describing the conventional technology).
Outline structure of a conventional bathroom sauna device is described referring to FIG. 14. As illustrated in FIG. 14, a conventional bathroom sauna device includes main body 104 which has blow out opening 101 and air intake 102 coupled through by airflow path 103. Main body 104 includes hot water supply member 106, air supply member 107 and heating member 108.
Hot water supply member 106 is mounted at the upper part of main body 104 for spraying hot water from above air-water contact section 105 in airflow path 103. Air supply member 107 is mounted at the upper part of main body 104 for forming an air stream within main body 104, from air intake 102 to blow out opening 101 by way of airflow path 103. Heating member 108 is provided at a location before blow out opening 101 for heating the air of airflow path 103.
In the above-structured bathroom sauna device, hot water supply member 106 supplies hot water to air-water contact section 105 of main body 104. When a stream of air is formed by air supply member 107 from air intake 102 of main body 104 through airflow path 103 to blow out opening 101, the air gets contact with hot water supplied to air-water contact section 105. The air thus heated and humidified is blown out from blow out opening 101 to the outside of main body 104.
Since a conventional bathroom sauna aims as its main objective to cause sweating, it is generally required to raise the temperature to as high as approximately 40° C., or a sweating temperature. So, it is a generally practiced design to dispose a means for heating the air at the blow out opening of bathroom sauna device. The air is heated at the blow out opening of bathroom sauna device to provide a high temperature air. However, it is not possible to raise relative humidity of the air.
Meanwhile, along with recent change in the bathing habits, people now expect beauty promotion effects with sauna bathing, in addition to health promotion through sweating. The conventional bathroom sauna devices, however, can not meet the requirements. The essential function expected with the sauna bathing for beauty promotion is to preserve an intrinsic moisture-keeping mechanism of the skin. In the conventional sauna devices, the air temperature of a chamber to be heated and humidified is raised to as high as approximately 40° C., or a temperature at which sweating starts. When a bathing person wipes sweat off with a towel, skin surface lipids and the like components essential for keeping the skin moisture may sometimes be inadvertently removed together with sweat. Even if he or she applies a cosmetic lotion to the skin, it might flow down together with the sweat, nullifying the effect of skin moistening. Further, the skin surface lipids and the like moisture-keeping component might be washed off by the sweat.
As described in the above, in the conventional bathroom sauna devices which primarily intend to cause sweating, the intrinsic moisture-keeping mechanism of the skin is impaired. So, they can not satisfy the recent requirements of beauty promotion which pursues to preserve the skin moisture.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent No. 3532646.